Around the World in 80 Books

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of our World Eco-fiction Series, I present "Around the World in 80 Books: A Guide to Ecological and Climate Themes in Fiction," an article at Medium.com. Themes include harsh survival, advocacy, veneration of the world around us, the slow apocalypse, the haunted, the weird, and the psychological. It's an eclectic and diverse range of stories, set around the world, on every continent. Also, Dragonfly is blending the original spotlight on climate change authors with the newer world fiction series, now that these similar author spotlights are on the same domain.

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The Ocean Container, Patrik Sampler

First it’s about climate change and the hostility Canada has shown toward those wishing to do something about it. It’s also about the role of artists at a time of political crisis. And it’s psychological, exploring the mind of a virtual prisoner.

In this surreal and lyric debut novel, an environmentalist accused by a North American petro-state of "economic terrorism" takes refuge in a compound for vagrants. Surrounded by a variety of social and political outcasts--dubious charity providers, a spiritual healer, a man with two right eyes, contraband exotic species, and a theatrical company that may be a front for prostitution--the "terrorist" gradually embraces the exile of his improvised home, a shipping container, where the division between imagination and external reality will irrevocably blur.

Quotes

Ursula Le Guin is so important, because she pushed the idea that science fiction, or speculative fiction, can be a space for being really thoughtful, and for really exploring ideas. And also for daring to imagine a version of us that is better—and, in some ways, worse—than our present selves. I think she was unmatched. She was a great novelist, and a great evangelist for the novel. Earthsea is a huge influence, as is The Dispossessed. –Marlon James